Joe Cotten's owners plan to rebuild on site of burned building

Businesses have offered to hire any employees who need jobs

ROBSTOWN - As he watched flames swallow the restaurant his father built, Cecil Cotten still was taking care of business.

He called a friend and competitor, Malcolm DeShields, and asked him to take over a catering job the next day.

"His restaurant is burning to the ground, and he was concerned about his clients," said DeShields, owner of The Bar-B-Q Man on Interstate 37 in Corpus Christi.

Just as he worried about his clients and about 50 employees, people from across the Coastal Bend have turned out to support Joe Cotten's Barbecue and Cecil, its second-generation owner. The restaurant, which started in 1947, is synonymous with Robstown. Almost as soon as it burned Wednesday night, the restaurant, which Cotten intends to rebuild, became a rallying point for the community.

Bussard said he wanted to show Cotten the same support Cotten had shown him.

"My home burned down two years ago," Bussard said. "I was badly burned, too. Cecil Cotten was the only friend I had who came to visit me when I was recovering. He brought me barbecue."

Bussard said Cotten stayed at the restaurant all night, even after the fire was out, hovering like a parent over an ill child.

"He kept watch for looters and made sure none of the hot spots flared up again," he said.

A steady stream of employees, residents, customers and area leaders visited the site. Businesses have offered to hire any employees who need jobs. DeShields took on a catering order for 175 people at a Robstown school awards banquet Thursday night.

DeShields also served barbecue to firefighters Wednesday night and helped get about 6,000 pounds of raw meat from a walk-in cooler.

Marcus Barrera, owner of Kiko's Mexican Food Restaurant in Corpus Christi, said he has at least 30 openings and would make more if needed to accommodate Cotten's employees.

"I know he was concerned about his staff," Barrera said. "That's No. 1."

But working at another restaurant could be a tough transition for waiters who have built decades of loyalty with the Cottens and recite the menu by heart.

Johnny Esquivel, a 49-year employee, brought his great-grandson to the charred restaurant Thursday. Esquivel, who helped build the existing restaurant, has no doubt it will be rebuilt.

He said he has no plans to seek work in the meantime.

"I've been here too long," he said.

DeShields, whose restaurant has been in business 33 years, said the loyalty of the employees, customers and residents stems from the Cottens' long reputation of helping the community, including working with local churches.

"I'm sure there are a thousand things, but (Cecil) doesn't talk about them and he doesn't brag about them," DeShields said.

Michael Gonzalez, 20, who has worked at Cotten's three years, said employees all want to help in the rebuilding process.

"We may get other jobs, but nowhere is going to be like this," he said.

Friends described Cecil, who couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, as determined to keep the family business going.

"I think everybody is probably in a state of shock, although Cecil was very upbeat," Barrera said. "The thing he did tell me was you've got to pick up the pieces and keep the ball rolling."

"I've known the Cottens most of my life," Bussard said. "They'll come back."Cecil's brother, Ken Cotten, said once insurance issues are worked out, the family plans to use the same location.

Fire inspectors moved around the building taking notes on Thursday and said it could be two or three days before the building is cleared for workers to clean up debris.

No cause has been determined, though employees said the smoky smell and flickering lights as the fire began Wednesday caused them to suspect an electrical problem.

Barbecue aficionado John DeMers said he was saddened when he heard about the fire through Twitter Thursday morning.

DeMers, author of "Follow the Smoke: 14,783 miles of Great Texas Barbecue," said places like Joe Cotten's are about more than the building and the brisket. They link Texans to their past and serve as meeting halls, family gathering places, and wells of pride for small towns, he said.

At Cotten's, DeMers said he has been impressed by the texture of the sauce, with chunks of tomato, and by the steady stream of old-timers who proved Joe Cotten's had become a true institution, as if the celebrity photographs and autographs lost to the fire weren't proof enough.

Waiter Robert Elizaldi ticked off part of the list: Willie Nelson, George Strait, Lyndon B. Johnson, Israeli statesman Ariel Sharon and, more recently, Karl Rove, an adviser to President George W. Bush.

"We were hoping for Oprah but she never made it in," Elizaldi quipped.

But it was the everyday names, the friends and neighbors and family members, who made Cotten's what it was, and went to the restaurant to share in a bad time just as they had for all the good times.

"We write part of our life stories with where we eat and who we eat with," DeMers said. "You could tell a lot of that happened at Joe Cotten's. A lot of people kept track of the time of their lives from meal to meal there."

A place like Cotten's, DeMers said, "connects you to your parents and your grandparents because they ate the same kind of food. My parents never put sushi to their lips, but they ate barbecue.